Titan's Musical
by SilverTortoise
Summary: Join Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Robin as they struggle to produce... theater. Spongebob theater! A Teen Titan's oneshot ensues...
1. Reheasal Can Be Interesting

**Titan's Musical**

A Teen Titans Oneshot

The theater was dark. Too dark. Apparently, the fuses to the auditorium lights had burned out again, so until they were fixed the technical staff and director had to sit in complete blackness, waiting. And they didn't have long to wait...

There was a faint swishing sound from the stage, a few footsteps, then a moment of silence as a vague figure, blacker against the blackness, stood poised upon the stage. With a faint pop, a single spotlight turned on over the figure, illuminating only the outline of a hooded cape and the toes of the figure's blue boots. There was a slight pause, and the director coughed faintly, as if he was trying to see just how quietly he could do it. The figure shifted and sang in a most morose voice,

_"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"_

With shocking reply all the lights on the stage burst into blinding life, illuminating the four other figures on the stage who leaped forward, screaming,

_"Spongebob Squarepants!" _

Cyborg, Robin, Starfire, and Beastboy sort of exploded onto the stage, singing and dancing with an almost painful energy.

The figure at center stage now removed its hood and Raven was revealed, looking slightly sick. She sang the next line,

_"Absorbent and yellow and porous is he."_

_"Spongbob Squarepants!"_

Cyborg lifted Beastboy up onto his shoulders while Robin and Starfire linked arms and spun around in circles. Raven continued,

_"If nautical nonsense is something you wish..."_

There was an enormous crash as Beastboy toppled off of Cyborg's shoulders and fell straight on top of Starfire, who let out a scream and blasted away several of the lights with a green starbolt.

"No!" the director screamed, jumping up from his seat in the first row and waving his arms in desperation, "Not the lights! I've already had to replace five others!" Raven took the opportunity to sweep away off the side of the stage, muttering under her breath as she went. Beastboy and Starfire looked stricken.

"Dude!" Beastboy groaned, slumping to the ground, " I don't know what happened... Cyborg must of shrugged or something and I just lost my balance."

"Hey!" Cyborg barked, rounding on the small green guy, "Are you saying that this is MY fault? Who fell off? Who attacked Starfire?"

"Fear not, Cyborg; I am undamaged," Starfire interjected, picking herself up off the floor and tossing back her long red hair. Robin reached over to brush a clinging dust bunny from her shoulder.

"This is pointless," Raven called from the stage steps; her arms were folded across her chest and she looked murderous. "I see no reason to continue this rehearsal if you are all going to keep making mistakes."

The director moved over to her, placing what he believed to be a comforting arm across her shoulders.

"Raven, honey, don't you go worrying your little head about the others. We'll get them straightened out and I promise the show will go on without a hitch. Don't give up on me now, sugar."

Raven gazed at him with thinly disguised wrath on her pale face; obviously she was not used to being called "honey" and "sugar."

"We will see," she said, inching away from the director's cloying arm.

"Take ten, then, honey," he said, motioning to the other titans, "You guys seem to need a break, too, so you all can go into the green room and have some... lemonade or something."

"Delicious," sighed Starfire, seizing Robin and Beastboy by the wrists and dragging them bodily off the stage and toward the back of the theater. Cyborg hurried after them, snagging Raven along the way; she had not moved since she had evaded the director's arm.

"Raven, you've gotta loosen up," Cyborg exclaimed as they entered the green room, which looked like it had not been green since the last century, "You've gotta know when to have a little fun and go with the flow. Hey! Everyone makes a little mistake sometime; why do you have to get so worked up about it?" He moved to where the other titans were helping themselves to the rather watery lemonade and poured himself a glass.

Raven refused to let her annoyance be dissipated. "How could you possibly think that this whole thing, this play, is even that intelligent? I don't really want to spend the next few weeks of my life singing about Spongebob." She glared up at Cyborg, daring a response.

He considered. "Well, remember what all this is really for, Raven. We volunteered to be in this show cuz all those kids from the hospital can't wait to see us all. And afterwards, we can meet the kids and maybe even sign autographs--"

"That's not the point;" Raven interrupted, "It's stupid."

"It is the point, girl... this is important to the little sick kids. You gotta see the good in that."

"Maybe." Raven stared down at the moth-eaten carpet, frowning. "I just don't know how I'm gonna be able to get up on that stage, a Teen Titan, and sing. About a yellow, square spongy thing with weird friends."

"Sounds a lot like you, Raven," Cyborg laughed, moving out of the way of her responding smack.

"This juice of pressed lemons is truly wonderful!" Starfire exclaimed from the other side of the room,"Is there more?"

♥

"Aaaand... _go._" The director settled back quite comfortably in his rickety theater chair, watching the rehearsal unfolding before him.

"Here, Patrick. Have a Krabby Patty," Starfire said; she was dressed as Spongebob's girlfriend, Sandy. Pretending to hear something from off stage, she whirled around to the extremely morose Patrick, who was really Raven, and whispered loudly, "Psssst. There he is, Patrick; say your line!" The gloomy Patrick wilted slightly and said, "Why, thank you, Sandy." She took the proffered fake plastic patty and continued, "Too bad Spongebob isn't here to enjoy this. These were--" Raven stopped and sighed loudly; Spongebob, AKA Beastboy, had forgotten his entrance.

"Okay, Spongebob, let's run that last line again," the director called, sinking further into his seat; he had the distinct feeling that he would probably have a little difficulty getting out again. He turned toward Raven and Starfire, who were both staring in disbelief across the stage at Beastboy. He had apparently made his own yellow, square costume, and the effect was, to say the least, startling.

"Hey, sorry guys!" he called, frantically trying to adjust his costume, "I'm just having a few...oof... technical difficulties."

"Understatement of the century,"Robin groaned from somewhere offstage. Raven actually had to stifle a smile when she remembered which character Robin had been assigned: Spongebob's loyal (and strangely speechless) pet, Gary the Snail.

"Okay, let's take this again," the directer called, mopping his brow; he had just caught sight of Beastboy's costume.

Raven cleared her throat and repeated her line, "Too bad Spongebob isn't here to enjoy this." An inspiration came to her, and she tried to pretend to bite into the plastic patty and nearly succeeded in breaking off a tooth. "Ow... um... These were his favorite..."

At that moment, Spongebob burst onto the stage, having overheard this odd conversation. "Hey! Sandy! Patrick! What are you talking about? I'm not dead! I'm right here in front of you!"

Starfire turned to Raven and continued as though she had not heard, "Oh, Patrick, you are right. Spongebob would weep openly if he knew that we had some and he could have nothing. Oh! I can not think about poor Spongebob being dead!

"There, there, Sandy," sighed Raven, who seemed to have found a rather shifty-eyed, sinister personality for the usually sweet, naive Patrick, "Try not to think about it too much. He wouldn't want us to. Let's eat these in his memory."

"Hey! Dudes! I'm not dead!" Beastboy was outdoing himself as the panicky Sponge, flapping his arms wildly in Starfire's face.

Raven sighed, almost wishing that she could be like Robin right now; fully invisible in a costume, having no lines to memorize, and OFFSTAGE ...!


	2. Lights, Camera, Action!

"Dude, I think I'm gonna be sick." Beastboy clutched at the place on his square yellow costume that would have been his stomach; his normally green face had turned a nasty shade of puce.

"Yes, I feel like I have eaten the live grubs of a glorbuggle beatle," Starfire gasped, overcome by nervousness as well. Beastboy digested her comment for a moment; "Oh man, now I _know _that I'm gonna be sick!"

"Star, why did you say something like that?" Cyborg groaned, wiping sweat off his forehead, "Just what I needed to hear..."

Raven thought that she should say something, but she didn't trust herself to open her mouth. She had never experienced stage fright before, and intensely disliked the clammy, shaky feeling that spread from the back of her neck all the way down to her knees. She sighed. The director had explained that they would experience nervousness before the show started, but she hadn't been prepared for this.

Robin struggled feebly on the floor, entirely encased in his Gary-the-Snail costume; he managed to get into a slightly more comfortable position.

"Well, at least you can breath," he said, his voice muffled by the costume, "And feel your legs..."

Cyborg adjusted his dark cloak; he was going to play the role of Squidward in the play. "Ya know, I really hope this goes well... It sounds like there's hundreds of kids out there!"

"The director of the hospital said that there would only be about sixty or seventy tonight," Robin gasped, struggling again.

"I don't know if I can do this..." Beastboy was clutching at his head now and weaving slightly on the spot, "I'm not cut out for theater. What was I thinking?!"

"My friend, do not give up now," Starfire cried, throwing her arms around the little green guy, "I know that your performance will be wonderful for the children; do not let the nerves stop you!" Cyborg nodded in agreement, and Raven would have joined him except that her head felt remarkably light. There was a strange buzzing in the air, the air was warmer than was comfortable, and she was just feeling like the floor was tilting when the director came hurrying around the corner toward them.

"Places! Places everyone," he gasped. Up close he didn't look so good, either. "The show is about to start! Raven, Starfire, remember to sparkle up there. Cyborg, Beastboy, Robin, be your normal manly selves. I'll be cheering from the back."

Robin said something that got almost completely muffled by his costume, but Raven thought that it had something to do with it being hard to act manly while you're wriggling on the ground. A strange, hysterical laugh bubbled up inside her, but she squashed it before it surfaced. She knew how they all were feeling; why had they agreed to do this?

"For the kids, guys; for the kids," Cyborg whispered, as if he had been reading her thoughts, "They sure need this more than we know."

The sound from the auditorium diminished suddenly as the lights went down; the moment of truth had come. Raven fought nausea as she moved to her place at center stage. She was vaguely aware of the movements of her friends behind her, getting ready for the music to start.

There was a pause, which to Raven seemed to stretch on forever...

A single note sounded from the piano, the dim spotlight came on, and Raven's body took over as she sang,

_"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?"_

The stage lights burst into life, and her companions were ready, singing with all their might.

- - - - - - - - - -

The dark sky seemed more full of stars than it had ever been, and the cool breeze that blew up from the bay felt refreshing. The five titans were sprawled out on top of Titan's Tower, exhausted after the evening's proceedings.

Cyborg broke the silence.

"Well, was it worth it? Do you guys think we made a difference?"

Robin chuckled darkly; he probably wouldn't be volunteering for any more theater in the near future unless convinced that he would get to wear a costume with the freedom of a tent.

Starfire piped up, "My happiness was overflowing when we greeted the children; their joy was like a sunrise on Blardop Prime! I wish to feel that experience again..."

"Dude, seriously?" Beastboy groaned, rolling over on his side to face her, "I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again! At least, not the acting part. Talking to the little kids afterward was pretty cool, though; I could do that again."

"Hey, maybe we could do that again sometime!" Cyborg said, sitting up.

"Yeah," Robin agreed, "we could. Maybe in a couple of days we can go back to the hospital and visit the kids again. You know... it might do them some good... give them something to look up to."

"That would be joyously wonderful!" Starfire cried, waving her arms happily in the air.

"And what about you, Raven?" Robin continued, "Do you want to go see them again?"

Raven still lay on her back, gazing up into the stars. The breeze felt good on her face after having been under the hot stage lights.

"Yeah," she mused, "I could." She thought for a moment, then continued softly, "There was one little girl... She had no hair... but she was smiling so happily like it was her birthday or something. I guess she just wanted to say hi, but then she told me that she wanted to be just like me when she grew up. And I thought, it takes a lot to say something like that when you're so sick." She sighed, sitting up. The others looked at her in astonishment; they hadn't heard her talk like that in a long time.

Raven stood, straighten her cloak behind her. Noticing the looks on her friend's faces, she said, "Come on; isn't that why we did this?" Smiling slightly, she turned away from them and headed toward the stairs which would lead down into the tower. Beastboy, Cyborg, Robin, and Starfire followed after her, and Cyborg placed his large metal hand on Raven's shoulder.

"You know," he said, "I think you understood what we were doing more than any of us. You're pretty cool, you know that?"

"Hey," Raven replied, gently shrugging off his arm, "I know I couldn't have done it alone."


End file.
